University  of  the  State  of  New  York 


THE  ELEMENT  OF  INSPIRATION 
IN  THE  SCHOOLS 

ANNUAL    ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  AT  THE    I7TH  ANNUAL  CONFERENCE  OF  THE 

ASSOCIATED    ACADEMIC     PRINCIPALS 

December  26,  1901 

SYRACUSE   CITY   HALL,  SYRACUSE  N.  Y. 
BY  PRES.  ANDREW  S.  DRAPER,  UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


THE  LiOHARY  CF  THE 

SEP     1  1932 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS. 


R32sm-Mr2-56o 


ALBANY 

UNIVERSITY   OF    THE    STATE    OF    NEW   YORK 
1902 


It^Kd^    THE  LOBY  OF  THE 
SEP    1 1932 

University  of  the  State  of  New  York  --  ...  ,Mnio 
i OF  II.UNOIS. 

THE  ELEMENT  OF  INSPIRATION  IN  THE  SCHOOLS 

BY  TKES.   ANDREW  S.   DRAPER,   UNIVERSITY   OF   ILLINOIS 

The  growth  of  the  American  school  system  supplies  material 
for  a  remarkable,  a  fascinating,  even  a  patriotic  and  glorious 
story.  No  other  great  people  ever  gained  such  splendid  edu- 
cational conceptions;  the  masses  stand  for  unlimited  educa- 
tional opportunity  to  every  son  and  daughter  of  the  people. 
No  other  people  ever  thought  of  providing  schools  for  every  rod 
of  such  a  wide  and  sparsely  settled  territory  as  ours;  no  other 
people  ever  attempted  to  provide  the  best  free  schools  of  all 
grades  for  all  classes  in  such  cities  as  ours.  No  other  great 
nation  in  the  world  has  builded  an  educational  system  on  such 
plans — so  flexible,  so  adaptable  to  the  national  ends,  so  express- 
ive and  promotive  of  the  national  life.  And  it  has  not  been 
done  by  a  monarchy,  or  by  a  ministry  t  arough  the  use  of  dicta- 
torial powers,  but  by  the  millions  of  a  great,  liberal  people, 
moved  by  the  highest  purposes,  acting  through  primary  meet- 
ings and  then  exercising  sovereign  powers  through  representa- 
tive and  responsible  assemblages.  ^Yhat  other  people  in  all 
history  ever  overcame  the  inertia  of  conditions,  ever  tri- 
umphed over  the  hindrances  to  cooperative  action  in  the  mul- 
titude, ever  supplanted  the  rule  of  force  with  the  rule  of  love 
and  of  sense,  ever  brought  scientific  investigation  and  rational 
and  systematic  methods  to  the  training  of  the  child  so  com- 
pletely and  successfully,  ever  made  such  munificent  public  and 
private  gifts  to  learning,  ever  took  all  the  great  steps  leading 
to  such  splendid  realizations  of  noble  purposes,  quickly,  unitedly 
and  effectually,  as  that  mighty  people  which  has  been  com- 
pounded out  of  all  the  peoples  of  the  earth  in  this  free  land 
in  the  last  two  generations  of  men?  Some  other  peoples  have 
done  much;  some  other  peoples  are  doing  some  things  in  their 
schools  better  than  we  are  doing  those  things  in  ours;  but  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say,  and  as  it  is  true  it  is  a  glorious  thing  to 
say,  that  the  thinking  and  the  doing  of  no  other  people  ever 
resulted  in  such  a  comprehensive,  such  a  unique  system  of 
popular  education  as  that  brought  forward  by  the  American 
people  in  the  last  half  century  of  time. 


336  UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    STATE    OF    NEW    YORK  [26    DEK^ 

It  is  not  speaking  unadvisedly  to  attribute  this  splendid  ad- 
vance to  the  last  two  generations  of  men  and  the  last  half 
century  of  time.  No  one  lacks  in  appreciation  of  that  fore- 
sight and  heroism  of  the  fathers  which  laid  the  foundations  of 
the  Republic;  but  the  conditions  which  have  made  the  modern 
American  school  system  necessary  and  possible  had  not  de- 
veloped in  the  days  of  the  fathers,  and  their  wisdom  and  their 
strenuosity  were  otherwise  abundantly  engaged.  They  were 
obliged,  as  we  shall  be,  to  leave  some  things  to  be  done  and 
some  glory  to  be  gained  by  the  men  and  women  who  possessed 
the  land  after  them. 

We  are  again  and  again  enjoined  to  look  forward  and  not  back, 
but  it  will  not  be  a  grievous  sin  if  we  violate  the  inspiring  injunc- 
tion in  order  that  we  may  understand  the  present  more  readily, 
realize  the  responsibilities  which  are  on  us,  and  look  forward 
more  clearly  and  confidently. 

A  thousand  years  ago  great  throngs  of  people  moved  out  of 
northern  and  central  Europe  and  compounded  a  new  nation  in 
Britain.  Either  because  of  the  constituent  elements,  or  because 
of  some  sort  of  chemical  action  resulting  from  the  compounding, 
that  nation  soon  showed  some  traits  which  were  very  unusual 
and  very  great.  It  showed  something  of  an  understanding  of 
the  Grod-given  rights  of  the  individual  man,,  as  well  as  something 
of  the  necessity  of  organized  society;  it  showed  both  readiness 
of  initiative  and  self-control;  it  showed  intelligence  which  could 
set  rational  limits  to  the  prerogative  of  the  king,  and  even  forti- 
tude which  would  defy  the  power  of  the  king,  without  destroy- 
ing the  kingship  or  overthrowing  the  kingdom;  it  developed  the 
constructive  genius  to  set  up  a  more  stable  constitutional  gov- 
ernment in  larger  measure  than  any  other  people  had  ever  done; 
it  developed  much  spiritual  life,  blemished  of  course  by  the 
superstitions  and  irrational  customs  of  an  age  when  force  ruled 
and  darkness  covered  the  earth;  it  advanced  slowly  but  steadily 
in  the  arts  and  sciences;  it  created  armies  and  constructed 
navies,  entered  into  world  relations,  dreamed  of  world  con- 
quests more  than  it  realized  world  responsibilities,  did  much 
wrong  but  more  good,  gained  in  outlook  and  in  conscience  and 
in  power  through  the  doing;  and  finally  used  its  power  for  the 


1901]  ANNUAL  ADDRESS  337 

•enlargement  of  freedom  and  the  development  of  law  more 
rationally  and  forcefully  and  broadly  than  had  ever  been  done 
by  any  other  nation.  And  its  standards  of  liberty  and  its 
gradually  unfolding  system  of  law  have  stood  the  test  of  time 
and  of  changed  conditions,  because  they  rest  on  foundations 
which  are  immutable  and  accord  with  fundamental  principles 
which  the  infinite  conscience  of  the  world  holds  to  be  unchange- 
able and  eternal. 

But  English  freedom  did  not  come  to  ite  full  flower  in  a  day. 
Security  was  assured  before  liberty  was  gained.  In  the  advance 
some  would  move  faster  than  others,  and  differences  grew  to 
bitter  persecution  and  fratricidal  war.  Some  broke  away  and 
came  to  the  new  world  and  set  up  government  in  the  wilderness. 
They  brought  English  traditions  and  laws  and  institutions  with 
them.  They  would  leave  behind  some  things  not  well  to  take, 
but  they  expected  in  essentials  to  follow  the  English  models. 
In  their  persons  and  in  their  political  organization  they  were, 
were  glad  to  be,  and  expected  to  continue  to  be,  subject  to  the 
king  and  parliament  of  England.  In  time  other  great  peoples 
sent  colonies  to  our  shores.  Some  of  them  brought  ideas  and 
institutions  of  their  own.  Colonial  relations  were  established. 
English  thought  and  feeling  and  usage  were  somewhat  modified, 
but  in  essentials  the  English  exercised  control  and  English 
policies  happily  prevailed. 

A  new  nation  resulted.  It  was  not  quite  like  the  English 
nation,  but  it  never  ceased  to  be  an  English  nation.  Isolation, 
work  in  the  open  air,  led  liberty  to  grow,  but  respect  for  govern- 
ment did  not  grow.  Governmental  limitations  were  irksome. 
Rule  from  over  the  sea  was  distasteful.  Our  fathers  came  to 
be  opposed  to  parliaments  as  well  as  to  kings.  They  came  to 
be  jealous  of  all  government  that  could  govern.  Their  preju- 
dices carried  them  almost  to  chaos,  and  but  for  the  nerve  and 
.conscientiousness  and  resourcefulness  of  their  race  would  have 
carried  them  to  destruction.  Separation  was  imperative  and 
inevitable.     Unhappily  it  had  to  come  by  violence. 

The  fact  that  independence  was  gained  by  war,  and  was  fol- 
lowed by  another  war  with  England,  estranged  for  long  years 
both  the  older  nation  and  the  younger  one  from  the  influences 


338  UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    STATE    OP    NEW    YORK  [20    DEC. 

which  each  most  needed  and  which  none  but  the  other  could 
give.  In  America  the  heavy  burden  of  conquering  the  land,  the 
fear  of  delegated  authority  and  centralized  power,  the  somber 
hue  of  the  spiritual  life,  and  the  coveted  isolation,  impeded  both 
the  intellectual  and  industrial  advance  imperative  to  better  liv- 
ing. The  pace  was  even  slower  and  more  uncertain  in  the  new 
nation  than  in  the  old.  The  average  American  up  to  the  middle 
of  the  19th  century  was  not  far  from  the  intellectual  or  indus- 
trial plane  of  the  average  Englishman  of  the  time  of  Elizabeth 
or  of  Cromwell. 

Then  history  began  to  repeat  itself.  The  very  peoples  from 
whom  great  throngs  went  a  thousand  years  before  to  enter  into 
the  building  of  the  English  nation  began  sending  yet  greater 
throngs  across  wider  seas  to  an  endless  and  unexplored  country 
to  combine  with  the  resultant  stock  and  compound  yet  another 
nation.  All  the  other  peoples  of  the  earth  have  sent  their  thou- 
sands and  thousands  also,  and  out  of  all  these  a  new  nation  and 
a  new  civilization  have  emerged.  It  is  governing  and  occupying 
the  western  world.  In  all  this  the  English  language  has  pre- 
vailed, the  essentials  of  English  character  have  dominated,  and 
the  fundamentals  of  English  liberty  are  everywhere  prized  above 
all  of  its  possessions  as  the  sacred  legacies  of  the  inspired  heroes 
of  generations  gone.  But  the  new  nation  is  not  an  English 
nation.  It  owes  much  more  to  old  England  than  to  any  other, 
and  perhaps  more  than  to  all  others,  but  it  has  distinguishing 
traits,  brought  into  its  life  by  other  peoples  and  growing  out  of 
its  own  experience,  which  are  quite  its  own.  It  has  reached  the 
point  where  it  exerts  more  influence  on  English  life,  and  infi- 
nitely more  on  the  life  of  every  other  nation,  than  England  or  any 
other  nation  does  on  its  life.  It  is  an  American  nation,  known 
and  regarded  at  every  capital  and  among  every  people  in  the 
world. 

It  has  brought  forth  new  ideals  and  new  measures  of  freedom, 
physical  freedom,  social  freedom,  political  freedom,  intellectual 
freedom,  religious  freedom  and  industrial  freedom.  It  is  still 
God's  truth,  and  it  is  God's  truth  now  in  a  larger  sense  than  ever 
before,  that  American  youth  are  free  to  break  through  the  bar- 
riers and  gain  knowledge  and  power,  and  win  success  and  fame 


1901]  ANNUAL    ADDRESS  33(J 

as  the  youth  of  other  lands  can  not,  under  their  systems,  hope 
to  do. 

It  has  made  a  new  manner  of  people  through  making*  more  of 
the  individual  man;  it  has  created  altogether  new  measures  of 
public  power  through  unwonted  combinations  of  multitudes  of 
forceful  men  and  women;  it  has  centralized  and  made  quickly 
available  the  power  and  authority  of  a  great  people  in  a  manner 
which  surprises  the  world;  and  better  than  all  else,  it  has  in  the 
years  of  its  great  strength,  as  never  before,  shown  its  purpose  to 
use  its  power  to  sustain  right  and  justice  and  decency,  to  aid  the 
weak  and  to  replace  the  rule  of  force  by  that  of  reason  in  all  the 
world  relations  into  which  it  has  been  unwittingly  drawn  through 
the  steps  which  its  self-respect  compelled  it  to  take  in  order  to 
re  »  a  frail  and  beautiful  island  at  its  door  from  intolerable 
outrage. 

Happily,  too,  only  the  other  day,  it  completed  a  treaty  with  the 
mother  country  removing  causes  which  have  irritated  both  peo- 
ples for  half  a  century,  and  opening  the  way  for  better  and  more 
mutually  helpful  relations  and  for  great  world  enterprises  of  the 
first  moment  to  mankind.  We  do  not  approve  all  that  Great 
Britain  does,  but  who  can  have  so  little  knowledge  of  the  forces 
which  help  on  the  world  advance  as  to  be  unable  to  see  the 
importance  of  amicable  relations  between  these  two  great  Eng- 
lish spe;'  .  constitutional,  liberty  loving,  nearly  related 
nations? 

Our  itional  evolution  has  been  more  keenly  realized  by  the 
thi  ps  of  other  nations  than  by  those  of  our  own.  Their  famil- 
ial with  the  conditions  in  other  lands  is  quickening,  and  their 
point  of  view  is  better.  It  is  somewhat  anomalous  that  the 
most  philosophic  and  commendaton^  discussions  of  our  consti- 
tutions and  our  institutions  have  been  by  four  great  scholars  of 
foreign  birth,  Francis  Lieber,  Goldwin  Smith,  James  Bryce  and 
Hermann  Eduard  von  Hoist. 

While  these  men  analyze  judicially  and  admire  with  enthusi- 
asm, there  is  no  lack  of  educated  men  of  native  birth  who  give 


340  UNIVERSITY    OP    THE    STATE    OF    NEW    YORK  [26    DEO. 

their  productive  energies  to  little  beyond  the  apprehension  of 
trouble.  Our  every  advance  makes  them  shudder;  our  very  suc- 
cesses move  them  to  anguish.  They  are  having  nothing  but  their 
distress  for  their  perplexity.  The  men  and  women  who  make 
the  bone  and  sinew  of  the  nation  are  doing  their  work  and  eating 
their  bread,  and  reading  their  papers  and  singing  their  songs  and 
sending  their  little  ones  to  the  schools,  and  exercising  their  polit- 
ical powers,  and  moving  up  to  higher  and  yet  higher  planes  of 
living,  with  a  pride  in  our  institutions  which  is  consuming,  and 
with  a  confidence  in  their  stability  which  is  absolute. 

Of  course  no  intelligent  man  can  ignore  the  fact  that  all  politi- 
cal life,  like  all  life,  is  subject  to  injuries  and  diseases.  The  suf- 
frage is  somewhat  corrupted.  The  law  is  now  and  then  sold  out 
for  abhorrent  barter  in  high  places.  Eank  and  sometimes  brutal 
partizanship  obtrudes  itself  into  official  stations  created  to  exe- 
cute the  common  will  and  bound  to  treat  every  one  with  equal 
justice.  Public  business  is  frequently  managed  horribly  by  men 
who  have  neither  the  capacity  nor  the  honesty  to  manage  any 
business,  not  even  their  own,  safely  and  well.  But  sane  men  are 
not  overcome  by  this;  and  patriotic  and  heroic  men  go  about 
curing  it.  The  power  of  our  democracy  to  sustain  our  unique 
public  institutions  has  been  demonstrated.  Political  diseases 
may  be  less  in  number,  they  surely  are  not  less  in  amount,  when 
a  king  and  his  court  cause  all  of  them  because  they  have  all  of 
the  opportunity.  Health  depends  on  exercise.  Political  health 
depends  on  the  free  exercise  of  political  power.  There  is  stronger 
financial  integrity  where  there  are  banks  than  where  there  are 
none.  There  is  more  political  integrity  where  there  is  political 
freedom  than  where  there  is  none.  We  have  no  alternative  but 
to  trust  the  crowd.  We  need  have  no  fear  of  results  after  dis- 
cussion. There  is  ground  for  gratitude  at  the  growth  of  the 
American  public  conscience.  If  our  pure  democracy  has  been 
dishonored  it  has  been  behind  closed  doors  and  in  supposed  secu- 
rity from  public  indignation.  If  there  has  been  some  apparent 
indifference  to  political  evils  it  has  been  because  we  are  over- 


1901]  ANNUAL    A  I » I  >  I :  I  341 

occupied,  because  the  wrongs  have  been  considered  relatively 
unimportant,  and  because  of  entire  confidence  in  the  power  of  our 
democracy  to  visit  abundant  retribution  on  the  miscreants  before 
their  work  shall  become  a  menace  to  our  institutions. 

Foreigners  are  amazed  at  the  volume  of  our  legislation.  They 
can  not  understand  it  at  all.  It  seems  to  them  that  nothing  slays 
fixed,  and  that  there  is  little  to  be  depended  upon.  Some  of  our 
own  doctrinaires  are  troubled  also.  But  this  is  a  new  country. 
It  is  growing  and  advancing  more  rapidly  now  than  ever  before. 
Xot  many  things  beyond  the  fundamentals  embedded  in  the  con- 
stitution are  expected  to  stay  fixed  just  yet.  Legislation  can  do 
little  enduring  harm.  If  it  violates  principles  the  courts  over- 
throw it;  that  is  not  the  case  in  any  other  land.  If  it  is  not  sup- 
ported by  sentiment  it  is  not  e:  ited,  or  is  soon  repealed;  this 
is  not  the  rule  in  any  other  land.  This  is  the  people's  land.  We 
have  to  resort  to  much  legislatic  >  go  forward.  It  is  the  glory 
of  our  country  that  her  people  are  given  to  reading  and  discus- 
sion; that  sentiment  changes  and  advances;  that  her  laws  are  not 
immutable,  but  are  to  respond  quickly  to  newT  conditions,  express 
new  sentiments  and  help  on  new  purposes.  Far  more  good  than 
harm  has  come  of  our  much  legislation.  We  have  overcome  the 
sodden  lethargy  of  barbarism,  the  depressing  self-satisfaction  of 
settled  civilizations,  by  the  spirit  of  our  pure  democracy  flowing 
freely,  ofttimes  in  poor  form,  sometimes  witl  iful  wisdom, 

out  of  the  acts  of  our  legislative  assemblages. 

Let  me  use  a  concrete  illustration.     Two  or  thi  ars  ago  I 

fell  in  conversation  with  an  accomplished  English  gentlewoman, 
chaperoning  her  nieces  who  were  sight-seeing  on  the  continent. 
With  some  ill  concealed  amusement  she  asked  why  American 
heiresses  were  so  eager  to  marry  English  noblemen.  It  was 
answered  that  there  were  comparatively  few  such  marriages; 
that  in  some  cases  they  were  legitimate  alliances;  but  of  course 
there  were  a  few  very  rich  people  in  the  states  who  were  ready 
to  give  all  they  had  to  give  for  a  title  of  nobility.  Remembering 
what  I  knew  must  be  the  English  law  I  remarked  that  of  course 


342  UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    STATE    OF    NEW    YORK  [2G    DEC. 

it  was  all  right  for  an  English  girl  who  knew  no  difference,  but 
that  I  could  not  see  how  an  American  girl  with  knowledge  of  the 
legal  status  of  the  married  woman  in  England  could  think  of 
becoming  an  English  wife  anyway.  The  English  woman  was  sur- 
prised and  one  remark  led  to  another  till  she  inquired  whether  an 
American  gentleman  would  not  be  held  to  be  within  his  rights, 
and  saying  a  perfectly  proper  thing,  if  he  were  to  declare  in  pub- 
lic that  he  would  not  allow  his  wife  to  go  here  or  there  or  do  this 
or  that.  The  reply,  with  pride  at  least  equal  to  her  amusement 
concerning  American  heiresses  and  English  lords,  was  that  such 
an  incident  could  not  occur  in  America,  and  that  one  saying 
such  a  thing  would  be  held  to  be  a  boor  and  not  a  gentleman; 
that  an  American  husband  and  his  wife  are  equals;  that  they 
settle  their  policies  at  home  and  not  in  public;  that  each  is  ordi- 
narily only  too  glad  to  regard  the  wishes  of  the  other;  and 
that  if  one  is  not  so  minded  the  public  will  visit  its  disapproval 
on  the  offender  though  the  law  will  take  no  cognizance  of  the 
matter  till  the  offense  is  so  grave  as  to  overthrow  the  home,  and 
then  it  will  intervene  and  give  the  property  and  the  custody 
of  the  children  to  the  one  who  has  done  most  to  maintain  the 
parity  of  the  parents  and  the  stability  of  the  home. 

It  leads  one  to  reflect  on  the  extent  to  which  the  married 
woman  in  America  has  become  the  product  and  the  maker  of 
American  institutions.  Our  democracy  found  her,  under  the 
English  common  law,  without  rights  or  remedies  of  any  kind 
beyond  the  right  to  live  and  be  exempt  from  cruel  violence.  If 
she  had  personal  property  it  became  the  husband's  absolutely 
on  marriage;  if  she  had  real  property  it  became  his  for  life  and 
he  could  alienate  it  in  his  lifetime  or  dispose  of  it  by  will.  If 
he  invested  in  improved  real  estate  she  acquired  the  bare  right 
to  the  rents  of  one  third  of  it  so  long  as  she  remained  his 
widowT.  It  was  within  his  legal  power  to  give  or  will  what 
his  wife  brought  to  him  to  his  own  relatives.  She  could  not 
make  a  will  at  all.  Her  services  and  earnings  were  his.  The 
children  were  under  his  exclusive  control.     He  could  educate 


1901]  ANNUAL    ADDRESS  343 

them  or  not  a1  his  pleasure.  He  had  a  motive  for  keeping  them 
from  school,  for  their  labor  as  well  as  their  mother's  was  his; 
and  he  had  the  legal  right  to  indict  physical  chastisement  on 
her  as  well  as  on  them. 

We  have  changed  all  this,  but  we  could  never  have  done  it 
all  at  any  one  time  or  in  any  one  place.  Our  statute  law  has 
in  a  crude  and  piecemeal  way,  the  natural  product  of  our  gradu- 
ally advancing  democratic  life,  given  the  wife  a  legal  status 
nearly  equal  to  the  husband's,  and  in  doing  that  has  done  much 
more.  It  has  made  the  wife  a  companion  and  helper;  it  has 
made  the  mother  a  decisive  influence  in  the  home;  it  has  changed 
the  character  of  the  home,  and  in  changing  the  character  of 
the  home  it  has  changed  the  character  of  the  nation  for  the 
better.  It  seems  to  me  that  it  well  illustrates  the  spirit  and 
the  methods  by  which  we  advance  our  American  institutions. 

We  might  speak  of  the  influence  wiiich  our  democracy  has 
exerted  on  the  religious  life  of  the  country.  Toleration  and 
discussion  and  the  separation  of  church  and  ate  incident  to 
the  growth  of  individualism  and  to  equality  under  the  law;  the 
putting  awTay  of  superstitions;  the  refusal  to  permit  the  mere 
wording  of  creeds  written  in  the  middle  ages  to  bind  the  think- 
ing and  the  feeling  of  modern  life;  indifference  to  the  mere 
forms  of  worship — all  of  which  are  inevitable  sequences  of  the 
intellectual  advance,  have  changed  the  conceptions  of  God,  have 
forced  the  evolution  of  a  theology  capable  of  reconciliation 
with  scientific  truth,  have  lessened  the  skepticism  which  existed 
but  which  was  hidden,  have  deepened  faith  in  the  universal 
fatherhood  of  God  as  they  have  established  the  universal 
brotherhood  of  man  and  made  the  unity  of  God  and  all  his 
children  vital  in  the  world. 

There  have  been  few  products  of  our  democracy  so  notable 
as  the  advance  in  our  industries  and  our  commerce.  We  meet 
all  the  rest  of  the  world  and  defeat  them  easily  in  fields  which 
can  be  wron  by  multiplying  the  productive  power  of  our  popula- 
tion through  ingenious  machinery.     The  United  States  conimis- 


344  UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    STATE    OF    NEW    YORK  [26    DEC. 

sioner  of  labor  points  out  that  where  1000  paper  bags  once 
took  6J  hours  to  make  by  hand  they  are  now  made  by  the 
machine  in  40  minutes,  and  that  it  formerly  took  4800  hours  to 
rule  both  sides  of  10  reams  of  paper,  while  with  modern  tools 
one  man  does  it  in  2J  hours.  Col.  Wright  adds:  "An  ordinary 
farm  hand  in  the  United  States  raises  as  much  grain  as  three 
in  England,  four  in  France,  five  in  Germany,  or  six  in  Austria, 
which  shows  what  an  enormous  waste  of  labor  occurs  in  Europe 
because  the  farmers  are  not  possessed  of  the  mechanical  appli- 
ances used  in  the  states."  Who  can  contemplate  these  things 
and  doubt  American  preeminence  in  trade  or  fail  to  see  that 
whether  we  will  or  no  we  are  facing  very  great  international 
transformations  ? 

American  mowers  and  reapers,  American  shoes  and  clothing, 
American  cash  registers  and  typewriters  and  bicycles  and  auto- 
mobiles and  locomotives  are  invading  all  lands.  I  stepped  into 
a  shop  on  the  Strand  in  London  to  get  some  shaving  soap  and 
remarked  that  I  "  supposed  Pear's  was  the  best."  "  It  is  very 
good,"  the  clerk  said,  "  but  we  generally  sell  Williams'."  Amer- 
ican flour  grown  in  Dakota  and  milled  at  Minneapolis  is  making 
better  bread  than  they  have  ever  seen  before  in  India.  Ameri- 
can engineers  are  building  cantaliver  bridges  in  Burma  and  elec- 
tric subways  in  London.  American  machinery  is  handling  coal 
in  Germany  and  an  American  trolley  road  passes  the  pyramids 
of  Egypt.  Mr  Frank  A.  Vanderlip,  formerly  a  student  at  the 
L:niversity  of  Illinois,  and  recently  assistant  secretary  of  the 
treasury,  is  responsible  for  the  statement  that  in  the  last  six 
years  we  have  sold  abroad  in  produce  and  manufactures  $2,000,- 
000,000  more  than  we  have  bought,  while  from  the  beginning 
of  the  government  up  to  six  years  ago  the  foreign  trade  balance 
in  our  favor  was  but  $383,000,000. 

I  have  recently  come  on  an  elaborate  editorial  from  the  Lon- 
don daily  telegraph  entitled,  "America,  the  universal  competi- 
tor— a  continent  coming  of  age."  If  I  could  put  aside  my  paper 
and  read  the  whole  of  that  to  you  it  would  be  of  more  service 
than  anything  I  can  say.     Let  me  quote  a  few  sentences: 


1901]  ANNUAL    ADDRESS  345 

It  is  more  than  questionable  whether  the  average  Briton  has 
even  yet  any  sure  conception  of  the  overwhelming  character  of 
America's  natural  resources  as  compared  with  any  European 
scale.  Every  factor  in  her  industrial  greatness  is  on  the  giant 
measure  either  of  performance  or  potentiality.  She  has  two 
long  shores  upon  the  two  main  oceans.  Her  navigable  water- 
ways are  more  wTonderful  than  those  of  Siberia  or  Brazil,  for 
they  do  not  flow  towards  ice  like  the  one  or  through  the  dense 
tropics  like  the  other.  There  is  nothing  anywhere  in  the  czar's 
dominions  to  compare  with  the  St  Lawrence  and  the  Great 
lakes  leading  ocean  traffic  for  2000  miles  into  the  heart  of  a 
continent.  The  American  farmer  l;as  marketed  at  nearly  40e  a 
bushel  in  recent  seasons  corn  wThich  it  cost  him  15c  to  produce. 
The  United  States  raises  nearly  two  thirds  of  the  raw  cotton  in 
the  world.  She  raises  sugar  from  the  cane  in  the  south,  from 
the  beet  in  the  west,  from  sorghum  in  the  center,  and  from  the 
maple  in  New  England.  From  California  to  Florida  the 
country  is  opulent  with  orchards.  Her  harvests  are  a  sea  of 
golden  grain  stretching  over  many  times  the  entire  area  of  the 
British  isles.  The  immense  mineral  deposits  of  America  are 
still  won  in  great  part  near  the  surface,  not  by  deep  shafts, 
long  drifts  and  expensive  workings  of  older  mining  countries 
like  our  own.  The  coal  area  of  the  United  States  is  far  wider 
than  that  of  all  Europe  put  together.  She  is  now  first,  both  in 
gold  and  iron,  and  produces  all  the  metals  but  tin.  Her  herds  of 
horses,  cattle,  sheep  and  swine  are  such  as  the  pastoral  imagi- 
nation of  the  more  primitive  world  might  have  seen  only  in 
dreams.  Her  waters  swarm  wTith  fish.  And  w^hile  there  are 
already  76,000,000  of  inhabitants  in  America  there  is  still  16 
times  as  much  space  to  each  soul  as  in  these  crowded  islands, 
and  12  times  as  much  as  in  Germany. 

I  can  not  ask  you  to  listen  longer  to  a  quotation,  but  let  me 
exploit  one  sentence  of  this  foreign  w7riter  to  make  evident  the 
fact  that  what  we  have  won  has  not  come  inevitably,  or  easily, 
but  has  been  gained  through  effort  and  genius.  The  sentence  is 
the  brief  one,  "  America  is  now  first  in  gold  and  iron." 

We  used  to  get  all  our  steel  from  England.  A  little  more 
than  100  years  ago  the  state  of  Pennsylvania  loaned  $1500  for 
five  years  to  enable  a  man  to  try  to  make  bar  iron  into  steel  "  as 
good  as  in  England."  90  years  ago  our  whole  country  produced 
917  tons  in  a  year,  70  years  ago  1600  tons  in  a  year,  50  years 
ago  6000  tons  in  a  year.     It  was  of  inferior  quality  and  cost  from 


346  UNIVERSITY    OP    THE    STATE    OF    NEW    YORK  [26    DEC. 

6c  to  7c  a  pound.  Commencing  in  1864  the  Bessemer  processes 
improved  the  grade  and  reduced  the  price  to  less  than  lc  a 
pound.  Then  the  iron  age  passed  away,  and  the  steel  age  came, 
and  the  great  battle  with  foreign  makers  was  on  in  earnest.  It 
has  been  a  battle  royal.  In  1873  the  United  States  produced 
198,000,  and  Great  Britain  653,000  tons  of  steel.  In  1899  the 
Republic  made  10,600,000,  and  Great  Britain  5,000,000  tons.  In 
that  year  we  were  making  more  than  40^  of  all  the  steel  made  in 
the  world.  In  1891  we  exported  15,700  tons  of  steel  rails;  in 
1900  it  was  342,000  tons.  In  1891  our  iron  and  steel  exports 
were  valued  at  $29,000,000;  in  1900  at  f  122,000,000.  In  the  last 
30  years  the  British  steel  rail  exports  have  fallen  off  80^.  Dur- 
ing the  progress  of  this  great  contest  the  promise  has  at  times 
seemed  to  be  with  the  old  world  and  then  with  the  new.  Now 
our  triumph  has  become  complete  and  we  seem  to  have  gained 
a  secure  hold  on  the  first  place  in  that  mighty  industrial  art 
which  is  of  more  moment  to  national  prosperity  and  stability 
than  any  other. 

If  it  is  true  as  has  been  said  that  "  if  a  man  have  better  iron 
than  you  have  he  will  soon  have  all  your  gold,"  it  is  not  strange 
that  in  the  last  two  or  three  years  large  amounts  of  European 
capital  have  been  withdrawn  from  the  United  States,  and  that 
England,  Germany  and  Russia  have  become,  for  the  first  time, 
borrowers  of  American  money.  Who  can  fail  to  see  the  signifi- 
cance of  all  this  or  be  blind  to  the  fact  that  it  means  quite  as 
much  to  the  labor  as  to  the  capital  of  the  United  States? 

But  let  us  not  be  too  much  puffed  up  or  too  rapacious.  The 
foreign  trade  of  Great  Britain  is  almost  a  matter  of  life  and 
death  with  her.  We  could  get  on  very  well  by  ourselves.  We 
could  raise  all  we  need;  we  could  make  all  we  must  have;  and  we 
could  prosper  without  selling  in  foreign  markets  But  it  is  not 
so  with  her.  She  can  not  meet  the  needs  of  hei  people  out  of 
her  own  fields.  Her  workers  must  depend  on  materials  we  send 
to  them.  If  her  manufactures  do  not  command  other  markets 
than  her  own  her  mills  must  stop  and  multitudes  of  her  people 
must  come  to  want.     To  send  manufactured  goods  as  well  as 


1901]  ANM'AI.    ADDRESS  347 

raw  products  to  her  is  clear  gain  to  us.  But  our  clear  gain  de- 
pends on  her  prosperity  and  her  ability  to  buy.  We  wish  her 
well  for  her  own  sake  and  for  our  own.  It  is  so  with  the  other 
nations.  There  is  a  democracy  of  thrift  and  fair  dealing  gov- 
erned by  natural  and  inviolable  laws.  Thrift  and  fair  dealing 
help  each  other  everywhere.  Overreaching  defeats  itself.  The 
industrious  are  the  wiieel  horses,  and  commercial  integrity  and 
fair  dealing  are  the  leaders  of  civilization. 

We  may  well  be  on  our  guard  against  avarice  and  insatiable 
methods.  We  owe  our  industrial  preeminence  to  those  creatures 
of  our  laws,  the  corporations.  Economic  conditions  and  natural 
laws  of  trade  are  forcing  them  into  great  combinations.  We 
can  not  change  those  conditions,  and  we  are  likely  to  be  worsted 
in  a  contest  against  the  laws  of  nature  and  the  inevitable  trend 
of  trade.  But  there  is  no  rule  of  moral  action  binding  the  indi- 
vidual man  which  does  not  rest  on  men  in  combinations.  Cor- 
porations are  subject  to  the  same  moral  code  as  individual  men, 
and  they  are  amenable  to  the  people  who  created  them  as  indi- 
vidual men  are  not.  Such  of  them  as  use  the  powers  which  the 
people  have  granted  to  them  to  crush  individuals  and  break 
down  the  freedom  and  limit  the  volume  of  trade,  such  as  refuse 
information  concerning  their  affairs  and  resort  to  legal  subtle- 
*  ties  to  extort  dishonest  gain,  such  as  corrupt  political  action 
that  they  may  seize  prerogatives  opposed  to  the  common  weal, 
are  to  be  punished  and  regulated,  or  strangled.  Such  as  can 
not  be  controlled  will  be  strangled.  The  people  are  not  going 
to  block  the  highways  of  traffic,  or  break  or  overthrow  the  law  of 
contract,  but  they  are  not  going  to  be  despoiled  or  defied 
through  the  unlawful  exercise  of  privileges  which  they  have 
conferred  and  which  they  can  withdraw. 

The  highways  of  progress  must  all  be  strewn  with  the  wreck- 
age of  contests.  Along  such  roads,  grappling  with  such  respon- 
sibilities, democracy  is  advancing  to  its  eompletest  triumphs. 
It  may  be  more  agreeable  to  some  people  to  be  undisturbed,  it 
may  be  easier  to  keep  isolated,  but  if  democracy  were  to  main- 
tain exclusiveness  and  avoid  contests  at  a  time  when  the  older 


348 


UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    STATE    OF    NEW    YORK  [26    DEC. 


forms  of  government  are  exerting  every  effort  and  resorting  to 
every  device  to  extend  their  political  systems  and  conquer  com- 
mercial supremacy,  then  it  must  know  that  it  is  not  as  worthy 
of  dependence,  that  it  is  not  as  capable  of  serving  the  highest 
purposes  of  nations,  as  more  consolidated  forms  of  government 
have  proved  themselves  to  be. 

We  accept  no  such  conclusion  as  that.  We  have  recently 
said,  with  almost  one  voice,  in  a  deliberate  and  authoritative 
way  unknown  to  any  other  political  system,  that  the  Republic 
can  of  right  do  anything  which  any  other  sovereign  nation  can 
of  right  do.  We  have  recently  learned,  without  suspecting  it, 
that  our  people  stand  ready  to  deal  with  any  internal  or  ex- 
ternal problems  which  world  conditions  may  bring  on  us.  We 
shall  do  it  without  danger  to  our  system;  indeed  our  political 
system  can  acquire  the  strength  of  manhood  only  through  the 
doing  of  it.  Our  democracy  has  come  to  its  majority.  In  the 
words  of  the  English  writer,  a  continent  has  come  of  age. 

1  have  been  looking  into  our  political  history,  our  intellectual 
and  spiritual  evolution,  our  industrial  advance  and  commercial 
conquests  a  little,  though  the  fascination  of  the  subject  has 
beguiled  me  into  doing  it  more  at  length  than  I  had  intended, 
in  order  to  get  a  fresh  understanding  of  the  people  and  the 
interests  to  be  served  by  the  American  schools.  American 
schools  have  from  first  to  last  reflected  America!  nomic  and 
political  conditions.  It  may  well  be  doubted  whether  the 
schools  determine  the  course  of  a  people.  They  may  be  the 
implements  which  break  out  the  roads;  they  may  be  the  lamps 
which  light  the  course,  but  they  are  the  instruments  more  than 
the  creators  of  civilizations.  Civilizations  and  their  institutions 
are  the  product'  of  the  Almighty  Power  working  through  the 
souls  of  men. 

The  schools  have  advanced  with  the  growth  of  the  nation  and 
the  progress  of  civilization,  but  we  may  very  well  question 
whether  the  schools  of  our  fathers  did  not  better  represent  their 
civilization  than  our  schools  represent  ours.  If  this  is  so  it 
does  not  reflect  on  us  for  it  was  far  easier  for  them  to  make 


1901]  ANNUAL    ADDRESS  349 

schools  which  could  meet  the  moderate  demands  of  their  day 
than  it  is  for  us  to  understand  the  tendencies  and  the  claims  of 
these  seething  times  and  erect  schools  which  can  meet  present 
needs. 

Let  us  not  forget  that  there  was  real  teaching  before  there 
was  much  educational  philosophy,  and  before  methods  were  re- 
duced to  forms  and  expressed  in  rules.  This  does  not  discredit 
the  philosophies,  and  it  is  not  a  reflection  on  the  training  in 
methods  which  have  saved  us  from  chaos  in  the  centers  of 
population  and  in  the  large  schools  at  least.  It  only  means  that 
the  primitive  schools  had  easier  tasks  than  we  have. 

They  could  stir  enthusiasm  easier  than  we.  Teaching  depends 
on  the  interest  of  the  pupil.  The  interest  of  the  pupil  depends 
on  the  adaptation  of  the  subject  and  the  spirit"  of  the  teacher. 
The  troubte  with  the  greater  number  of  children  in  our  larger 
schools  is  that  they  never  gain  enthusiasm  over  anything.  They 
live  just  ordinary,  dronish,  dead  level  lives  because  not  touched 
with  the  vital  spark  which  would  start  their  machinery  into 
action.  The  teacher  of  the  early  schools  worked  directly  with 
the  individual  pupil,  understood  him  better,  and  was  more 
easily  able  to  do  the  things  which  would  fire  his  soul,  for  the 
schools  were  small. 

Beyond  all  question  we  are  trying  to  do  too  many  things.  The 
quantity  of  work  which  a  child  does  under  duress  is  not  so 
important  as  that  he  shall  do  something  because  he  likes  to  do 
it.  Before  he  can  like  to  do  it  he  must  be  able  to  master  it 
completely.  He  must  be  able  to  have  the  satisfaction  of  a  full 
triumph.  Growth  depends  on  the  power  to  do.  The  power  to 
do  waits  on  doing.  It  is  not  the  doing  of  this  particular  thing 
or  that;  it  is  not  following  prescribed  formulas  containing  so 
many  grains  of  this  or  that;  it  is  finding  pleasure  in  the  doing 
of  something  so  that  one  comes  to  do  it  easily  and  acquires  the 
desire  and  the  power  to  do  something  harder.  That  is  growth. 
The  early  teacher  could  choose  work  suited  to  particular 
pupils,  and  was  free  to  do  it,  for  he  was  a  law  unto  himself. 
And  so  teacher  and  pupil  worked  together  on  subjects  which 
they  could  master  and    which    they   therefore    enjoyed.     They 


350 


UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    STATE    OF    NEW    YORK  [26    DEC 


accomplished  things,  and  in  the  doing  they  gathered  the 
strength  and  the  ambition  to  do  larger  things.  That  was 
teaching. 

Aside  from  the  matter  of  close  touch  with  the  individual  pupil, 
there  is  undoubtedly  a  loss  to  the  spirit  of  the  school  because 
of  the  grading  of  pupils  and  the  segregation  of  classes.  Young 
pupils  gain  as  much  from  hearing  older  ones  recite  or  seeing 
them  fail  as  from  their  own  books  and  their  own  recitations. 
The  mixing  of  pupils  in  the  one  room  school  did  stir  thought 
and  generate  ambition. 

The  old  time  school  declamation  on  recurring  red-letter  days 
in  the  regular  routine  of  the  early  schools  was  a  great  stimulant 
to  boys  and  girls'.  It  wras  not  more  in  the  words  that  were  heard 
than  in  the  fact  that  the  boys  themselves  gave  expression  to 
them.  It  is  the  doing  of  things  which  stirs  ambition  and  creates 
power,  even  the  doing  of  things  wrhich  some  one  else  has  done. 
There  are  plenty  of  men  prominent  in  affairs  who  would  gladly 
testify  to  the  uplifting  influences  of  the  masterpieces  of  oratory 
and  literature  on  their  own  lives'  by  means  of  the  school 
declamation. 

If  I  could  have  my  way  there  would  never  be  another  school- 
house  built  without  an  assembly  room  large  enough  to  accom- 
modate at  one  time,  and  artistic  enough  to  attract,  every  child 
who  has  a  place  under  the  roof.  At  least  so  much  should  be 
done  to  break  the  endless  monotony  of  book  study  and  the  grade 
recitation;  at  least  so  much  to  stir  the  soul  through  the  singing 
of  the  multitude  and  the  magnetic  touch  of  the  words  that  are 
spoken  in  the  crowd. 

The  intensive  work  of  each  class  in  a  graded  school  is  prepara- 
tion for  the  class  beyond  rather  than  preparation  for  life.  The 
studies  multiply  rapidly  as  the  grades  advance,  and  the  tendency 
to  require  the  grade  below  to  prepare  pupils  for  all  they  may 
have  to  do  in  the  grade  above  is  irresistible.  The  teacher  is 
discredited  if  her  pupils  can  not  carry  all  the  work  and  do  all 
the  particular  things  wThich  have  been  placed  in  the  schedule 
of  the  next  grade.     The  upper  school  is  really  the  only  yard- 


1901]  ANNUAL    ADDRESS  351 

stick  for  an  early  and  accurate  measurement  of  the  work  of  the 
school  below.  It  is  better  than  none,  and  for  the  crowd  it  has 
made  the  schools  better  than  they  used  to  be,  but  it  tends  to 
routine,  and  it  acts  against  individuality  and  does  not  oncourage 
those  personal  traits  without  which  one  never  rises  above  the 
level  of  the  crowd. 

And  the  grading  of  the  pupils  results  in  the  grading  of  the 
teachers  also.  The  pupils  move  on  from  one  grade  to  the  next; 
too  often  the  teachers  are  stationary  and  their  work  and  their 
outlook  completely  circumscribed.  It  is  not  their  fault;  they 
are  conscientious  enough;  they  would  broaden  out  and  go  for- 
ward if  they  could.  If  the  administration  of  the  schools  is  free 
from  the  curse  of  influence,  if  growth  is  certain  to  win  a  posi- 
tion of  greater  influence  and  better  pay,  and  if  steadiness  and 
power  are  sure  to  be  rewarded  with  the/  commendation  and 
respect  of  a  community,  they  will  broaden  and  strengthen  and 
drive  the  work  of  the  school  with  a  spirit  wThich  gives'  life  and 
inspiration  to  pupils.  If  the  reverse  of  these  conditions  prevails 
they  must  be  made  of  unusual  stuff  if  they  do  not  succumb  to 
the  withering  routine  of  the  unending  grind  and  become  mechan- 
ical automatons  in  the  pint  cup  of  a  single  grade. 

The  professionalization  of  the  schools  tends  to  separate  them 
from  the  people.  I  am  not  saying  that  the  advantages  of  this 
do  not  outweigh  the  disadvantages;  I  am  only  calling  attention 
to  the  fact  that  there  are  disadvantages.  The  schools  are  not 
so  responsive  to  popular  sentiment.  Parents  do  not  understand 
very  much  that  is  going  on  in  them  and  are  impliedly  told  that 
it  is  beyond  them  and  that  they  can  not  expect  to  understand. 
What  their  children  are  trying  to  do  confounds  them.  They  are 
willing  to  be  confounded  if  they  can  only  believe  that  their  chil- 
dren will  be  better  and  brighter  and  stronger  than  they  are,  but 
they  can  not  down  their  incredulity.  Specialization  has  in  some 
directions  been  carried  to  an  extent  which  is  absurd,  and  the 
confident  and  conflicting  wisdom  of  educational  experts  on  phys- 
ical and  mental  and  spiritual  subtleties  is  confounding  to  people 
who  take  such  things  seriously,  and  amusing  to  men  and  women 


352  UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    STATE    OP    NEW    YORK  [26    DEC. 

of  humor  and   sense.      It   weakens   the   relations   between   the 

people  and  the  schools. 

We  are  accentuating  the  importance  of  technic  in  the  schools 
to  an  extent  altogether  unprecedented.  For  example,  we  are 
training  for  better  form  in  the  oral  or  written  expression  of 
thought  or  of  fact.  Certainly  there  is  enough  need  of  it.  But 
it  can  not  be  denied  that  it  is  limiting  the  range  of  thought 
and  the  freedom  of  expression.  "  Pupils  are  led  to  think  less  of 
what  they  shall  do  than  of  the  form  and  style  in  which  they  shall 
tell  of  it.  Form  is  not  substance,  and  while  substance  may.  well 
respect  it  it  is  not  to  be  made  the  slave  of  form. 

I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  literature  in  general  use  in 
the  schools  makes  for  culture  at  the  expense  of  strength.  I  am 
in  favor  of  culture  but  not  at  the  cost  of  manliness,  of  inde- 
pendence, and  of  power.  The  literature  which  was  used  in  the 
early  schools  was  rather  hard  for  the  cutting  of  intellectual 
eyeteeth,  but  once  masticated  it  gave  strength.  I  have  in  my 
library  a  little  leather  covered  book  printed  in  small  type  on  very 
brown  paper,  in  size  about  3  by  5  inches,  with  250  pages.  I 
would  rather  part  with  any  other  book  or  any  other  set  of  books 
I  have,  for  the  flyleaf  tells  me,  in  very  legible  penmanship,  that 
it  was  my  father's  school  reader  in  1824  when  he  was  15  years 
old.  Some  of  the  titles,  taken  at  random,  are:  "Change  of 
external  conditions  often  adverse  to  virtue,"  "The  misery  of 
pride,"  "The  vanity  of  riches,"  "The  mortifications  of  vice 
greater  than  those  of  virtue."  "  The  pleasures  resulting  from  a 
proper  use  of  our  faculties,"  "The  philosophy  which  stops  at 
second  causes  reproved,"  "The  pleasure  and  benefit  of  an 
improved  and  well  directed  imagination,"  etc.  These  subjects 
would  hardly  appeal  to  a  15  year  old  boy  now,  but  in  the  days 
when  they  were  used  they  were  discussed  and  digested,  and 
entered  into  the  making  of  strong  if  not  brilliant  character. 

The  tendency  has  been  to  regard  form  and  beauty  too  much, 
and  force  and  strength  too  little.  Beauty  is  attractive  but  it  is 
not  exclusively  important.  It  is  all  right  for  the  schools  to 
teach  form,  but  it  must  always  be  remembered  that  life  is  more 


1901]  ANNUAL    ADDRESS  353 

important  than  form.  If  either  is  to  be  subordinate  life  must 
be  uppermost.  Beauty  in  form  does  not  produce  effective] 
in  life.  Intensiveness  in  life  makes  beauty  in  form.  Even  the 
great  things  in  art  have  not  been  produced  by  copyists  of  form, 
but  by  men  and  women  with  gifts  developed  without  much  out- 
side aid.  The  truly  great  things  in  literature  have  not  been 
born  of  the  study  of  literary  style,  but  of  the  conflicts  of  strong 
minds  and  the  strivings  of  great  souls.  And  they  have  not  been 
on  things  artificial,  but  on  things  real,  grave,  inexorable,  on 
mighty  events  swept  along  by  the  irresistible,  underrunning  cur- 
rents of  human  life. 

Hear  David,  waiting  in  anguish  the  issue  of  the  battle  and 
assured  of  victory,  asking  the  first  messenger  for  the  informa- 
tion wmich  meant  most  to  him,  "Is  the  young  man  Absalom 
safe?"  and  then  in  breathless  anxiety,  of  the  second  messen- 
ger, "  Is  the  young  man  Absalom  safe?  " 

And  Cushi  answrered,  "  The  enemies  of  my  lord  the  king,  and 
all  that  rise  against  thee  to  do  thee  hurt,  be  as  that  young 
man  is." 

And  the  king  was  much  moved,  and  wrent  up  to  the  chamber 
over  the  gate,  and  wept;  and  as  he  went,  thus  he  said:  "  O  my 
son  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son  Absalom!  would  God  I  had  died 
for  thee,  O  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son!  " 

Hear  the  Greater  than  David:  "  Whosoever  shall  receive  this 
child  in  my  name  receiveth  me;  and  whosoever  receiveth  me 
receiveth  Him  that  sent  me;  for  he  that  is  least  among  you  all, 
the  same  shall  be  great." 

Some  of  us  yet  feel  the  effect  of  the  burning  verse  rising  out 
of  the  consuming  times  of  the  w^ar  between  the  states.  Hear 
Dr  Holmes: 

Flag  of  the  heroes  who  left  us  their  glory, 

Borne  through   the  battlefield' s   thunder   and   flame, 

Blazoned  in  song  and  illumined   in   story, 
Wave  o'er  us  all  who  inherit  their  fame. 

Hear  Mrs  Howe  in  the  Battle  hymn  of  the  Republic: 

He  has  sounded  forth  the  trumpet  that  shall  never  call  retreat; 
He  is  sifting  out  the  hearts  of  men  before  His  judgment  seat: 
Oh!  be  swift,  my  soul,  to  answer  Him!  be  jubilant,  my  feet! 
Our  God  is  marching  on. 


354  UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    STATE    OF    NEW    YORK  [26    DEC. 

Hear  a  few  familiar  sentences  from  the  great  Lincoln.  In 
the  Springfield  depot:  "  Here  my  children  were  born,  and  here 
one  of  them  lies  buried."  In  the  Newton  Bateman  letter: 
"  I  know  that  there  is  a  God  and  that  he  hates  injustice  and 
slavery.  I  see  the  storm  coming  and  I  know  that  His  hand  is 
in  it."  In  the  Greeley  letter:  "  My  paramount  object  is  to  save 
the  Union,  and  not  either  to  save  or  destroy  slavery."  "  I  shall 
do  less  whenever  I  shall  believe  that  what  I  am  doing  hurts 
the  cause,  and  I  shall  do  more  whenever  I  believe  that  doing 
more  will  help  the  cause."  "  I  shall  try  to  correct  errors  when 
shown  to  be  errors,  and  I  shall  adopt  new  views  as  fast  as 
they  shall  appear  to  be  true  views."  "  I  have  here  stated  my 
purpose  according  to  my  views  of  official  duty,  and  I  intend 
no  modification  of  my  oft  expressed  wish  that  all  men  every- 
where could  be  free."  In  the  first  inaugural:  "  In  your  hands, 
my  dissatisfied  fellow  countrymen,  and  not  in  mine,  is  the 
momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  The  government  will  not  assail 
you."  "  I  am  loth  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends. 
We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have  strained, 
it  must  not  break  our  bonds  of  affection."  And  in  the  great 
climax  of  his  life,  the  second  inaugural:  "  With  malice  towards 
none,  with  charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in  the  right  as  God 
gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  finish  the  work  we  are  in,  to 
bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have 
borne  the  battle,  and  for  his  widow  and  orphans,  to  do  all 
which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  a  lasting  peace  among 
ourselves  and  with  all  nations." 

There  is  something  like  a  break  in  grammatical  construction 
in  that  sentence.  You  would  have  difficulty  in  parsing  it. 
Teachers  can  not  parse  any  more  anyway.  Children  could  once 
parse;  teachers  are  stranded  at  the  thought  of  it  now.  They  are 
adept  at  putting  doubtful  literature  together;  but  they  have 
nothing  to  do  with  taking  great  literature  apart.  And  there 
is  more  growth  in  handling  a  little  literature  which  moves  the 
souls  of  men  for  generations  than  in  handling  a  whole  lot 
which  can  hardly  last  the  day  out.     If  that  culminating  sen- 


1901]  ANNUAL    ADDRESS  355 

tence  in  Lincoln's  second  inaugural  had  come,  in  ordinary  work 
from  an  ordinary  child,  to  any  teacher  in  this  state,  she  would 
have  undertaken  to  change  the  form  of  it;  and  yet  it  is 
enshrined  in  the  hearts  of  millions  of  people. 

I  can  repeat  a  passage  from  Mr  Beecher  which  I  read  and 
reread  many  times  in  a  school  reader  years  ago:  "The  cynic 
is  one  who  never  sees  a  good  quality  in  a  man  and  never  fails 
to  see  a  bad  one.  He  is  the  human  owl,  vigilant  in  darkness 
and  blind  to  light,  mousing  for  vermin,  and  never  seeing  noble 
game."  A  modern  literary  critic,  and  all  teachers  are  expected 
to  be  that  as  well  as  everything  else,  wrould  discuss  that 
learnedly  for  a  month  till  the  subject-matter  and  the  criticism 
were  both  thinner  than  a  postage  stamp.  "  Human  owl " 
would  be  held  anomalous,  and  "  mousing  for  vermin  "  trying  to 
flatulent  and  delicate  sensibilities.  Yet  that  is  a  good  sentence 
for  the  attention  of  modern  criticism  for  its  form  and  for  other 
reasons.  For  one,  I  am  glad  Henry  Ward  Beecher  could  defy 
the  soft-handed  critics  and  the  soft-headed  dilettantes 
altogether. 

I  opened  a  school  reader  with  a  not  very  ancient  titlepage 
the  other  day  and  came  on  a  poem  of  which  this  was  one  of  the 

verses: 

Children  are  what  their  mothers  are. 
No  fondest  father's  fondest  care 
Can  fashion  so  the  infant  heart 
As  those  creative  beams  that  dart, 
With  all  their  hopes  and  fears,  upon 
The  cradle  of  a  sleeping  son. 

How  do  you  suppose  such  stuff  as  that  appeals  to  boys?  Boys 
do  not  want  to  be  "  what  their  mothers  are."  That  is  the  very 
last  thing  in  all  the  world  they  are  hungering  for.  Ordinarily 
they  love  and  respect  their  mothers,  very  commonly  much  more 
than  they  are  accustomed  to  talk  about.  But  if  they  are  any- 
thing like  "  wThat  their  mothers  are"  their  fellows  are  likely 
to  poke  them  under  the  arms  and  call  them  feminine  and  uncom- 
plimentary names. 

Boys  are  not  likely  to  generate  enthusiasm  over  literature 
wThich  is  not  adaptable  to  the  natures  with  which  the  Almighty 


356  UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    STATE    OF    NEW    YORK  [26    DEC. 

has  endowed  boys.  The  normal  boy,  the  boy  worth  counting, 
the  boy  with  red  blood  in  his  veins,  loves  action  and  the  litera- 
ture which  describes  and  suggests  it.  How  the  substitution 
of  these  older  lines  on  the  flight  of  the  earl  of  Dundee,  from 
that  lover  of  nature  and  of  life  whose  monuments  tower  above 
those  of  all  soldiers  and  statesmen  in  the  squares  of  Glasgow 
and  Edinburgh,  would  strengthen  that  book  and  inspire  the  boys 
who  were  allowed  to  hear  and  led  to  understand  them: 

There  are  hills  beyond  Pentland  and  lands  beyond  Forth. 

If  there's  lords  in  the  Lowlands,  there's  chiefs  in  the  North. 

There  are  wild  Duniewassals  three  thousand  times  three, 

Will  cry  lioigh  for  the  bonnets  of  Bonny  Dundee. 
Come  fill  up  my  cup,  come  fill  up  my  can, 
Come  saddle  the  horses  and  call  up  the  men 
Come  open  your  gates  and  let  me  gae  free 
For  it's  up  with  the  bonnets  of  Bonny  Dundee. 

Xo  doubt  girls  with  no  teacher  but  a  man  are  entitled  to 
sympathy;  happily  there  are  few  of  them.  But  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  sympathy  let  us  not  forget  the  boys  whose  only  teacher 
is  a  woman.  And  let  the  lion's  share  of  pity  go  to  either  boys 
or  girls  who  are  subject  to  a  fussy  woman  or,  even  worse  than 
that,  an  effeminate  man. 

So  long  as  present  conditions  continue  in  the  American 
schools  it  will  be  necessary  to  make  rules  for  the  government 
of  teachers  in  order  to  keep  the  poorer  ones  from  doing  positive 
harm.  The  weaker  the  system  the  more  rules  there  must  be 
and  the  more  inflexible  they  must  be.  And  rules  level  down 
more  than  they  level  up.  They  can  not  help  poor  teachers  for- 
ward; they  do  keep  good  teachers  back.  They  may  prevent 
positive  harm,  but  they  also  stand  in  the  way  of  the  vital  ele- 
ment of  inspiration  in  the  schools. 

Teachers,  the  great  mission  of  your  station  is  to  inspire  boys 
and  girls,  young  men  and  young  women.  If  that  is  done  it  mat- 
ters not  so  much  what  else  goes  undone.  You  are  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  greatest  civilization  the  world  has  ever  known, 
charged  with  the  responsibility  of  training  men  and  women  wha 
can  realize  its  cost  and  its  worth,  who  can  enter  into  its  pur- 


1901]  ANNUAL  ADDRESS  357 

poses,  who  can  still  further  enrich  its  life,  and  still  further 
extend  its  outposts.  You  can  not  hope1  to  do  tliat  unless  you 
know  its  history  and  the  great  history  out  of  which  it  has 
sprung,  unless  you  have  drunk  deep  from  the  wellspring  of  its 
life.  You  can  not  hope  to  do  it  by  merely  following  the  routine 
of  a  schedule.  It  can  only  be  done  out  of  a  full  and  sincere 
and  irrepressible  individuality  of  your  own,  w7hich  can  realize 
that  the  schedule  is  only  the  skeleton  and  that  you  yourself 
must  provide  the  juices  and  the  energy  for  the  life  of  the  school. 

It  is  to  be  assumed  that  you  are  sane  enough  to  know  that 
freedom  is  not  license  and  that  you  have  wit  enough  to  do  things 
on  your  own  motion  without  violating  the  principles  or  defying 
the  policies  which  are  imperative  to  the  integrity  of  our  system 
of  popular  education.  My  wrord  for  you  tonight  is  that  you 
shall  not  hesitate  to  exercise  your  inborn  intellectual  freedom; 
that  you  shall  not  let  rules  and  lectures  and  books  and  papers 
and  devices  and  educational  subtleties  confound  and  take  out 
of  you  any  originality  you  ever  possessed,  and  so  make  your 
wrork  in  the  schools  insipid. 

The  growth  of  the  country  and  the  political,  intellectual  and 
industrial  advance  have  created  opportunities  for  the  young 
people  of  America  which  are  not  presented  to  the  young  people 
of  any  other  land.  The  teachers  are  to  make  these  opportuni- 
ties, wThat  they  have  cost  and  what  they  may  lead  to,  apparent 
to  the  schools.  The  conditions  which  we  have  discussed  tonight 
make  this  task  a  difficult  one.  It  is  one  which  can  be  met  only 
out  of  a  rich,  an  appreciative,  and  an  active  life.  But  if  this 
task  is  met  the  others  will  take  care  of  themselves  or  be  the 
more  easily  performed. 

Tell  the  boys  and  girls  that  no  one  can  hope  to  be  of  any 
consequence  in  the  world  who  will  not  wrork  early  and  late  and 
be  patient,  and  that  one  w<ho  will  do  that  can  not  fail.  Tell  the 
stories  of  successful  lives.  Do  not  stop  with  the  assurance 
that  every  American  boy  has  the  chance  to  become  the  Ameri- 
can president.  Pupils  know  that  the  chance  is  too  remote  to 
be  counted  on.      Emphasize  the  successes  of  ordinary  lives  in 


358  UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    STATE    OF    NEW    YORK  [26    DEC* 

possible  undertakings  and  accentuate  the  principles  on  which 
all  substantial  success  must  necessarily  rest. 

Kespect  the  different  qualities  of  human  nature  and  the  dif- 
ferent natures  which  come  under  your  care.  Development  is 
seldom  along  expected  lines.  It  is  the  unexpected  that  hap- 
pens. Encourage  the  activities,  physical,  mental,  and  moralr 
and  give  the  unexpected  a  chance. 

Not  so  many  years  ago  a  boy,  the  son  of  a  baker,  was  peddling 
cookies  in  the  streets  of  New  York.  He  became  interested  in 
stones;  his  interest  became  consuming;  in  one  way  and  another 
he  made  a  collection,  took  it  to  the  Philadelphia  exposition, 
and  finally  sold  it  for  $300,  the  most  money  he  had  ever  seen. 
Now  the  greatest  jewelry  house  in  America  pays  him  $10,000 
a  year  for  only  so  much  of  his  time  as  is  required  to  pass  on 
their  purchases  of  precious  gems,  and  his  name  is  familiar  and 
his  judgment  honored  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe. 

I  have  a  cherished  friend  who  was  born  in  the  most  humble 
circumstances.  He  might  easily  have  remained  in  humble  cir- 
cumstances but  he  preferred  to  struggle.  He  grew  strong 
through  struggling.  He  saw  but  little  of  the  schools.  He  got 
work  in  an  insurance  office,  and  got  so  he  wrote  a  good  hand 
and  developed  aptness  at  figures.  It  gained  him  a  clerkship  in 
the  state  department  of  insurance.  We  were  married  about 
the  same  time  and  were  neighbors.  I  lived  in  quite  as  good 
form  as  he  did.  We  served  on  the  board  of  education  together 
for  years.  He  was  thoughtful  and  just,  affable  and  juicy.  He 
became  an  actuary,  and  in  time  surprised  every  one  by  being 
appointed  deputy  superintendent  of  insurance.  We  came  to  be 
in  the  capitol  at  the  same  time,  he  as  state  superintendent 
of  insurance  and  I  as  state  superintendent  of  instruction. 
Then  he  resigned  the  office  of  state  superintendent  of  insur- 
ance to  accept  the  presidency  of  the  New  York  Life  at  $50,000  a 
year,  and  has  become  a  leading  factor  in  the  financial  affairs 
of  the  greatest  moneyed  center  of  the  world.  It  is  needless 
to  say  that  he  lives  in  quite  as  good  form  as  I  do  now. 


1901]  ANNUAL    ADDRESS  iioO 

Be  careful  about  standards  of  value  and  of  excellence.  I  am 
v<  ry  far  from  being  an  unbeliever  in  or  a  critic  of  classical 
study.  Of  course  it  is  suitable  for  mental  discipline  and  con- 
tributory to  culture.  It  is  the  foundation  of  other  things.  Bat 
there  are  limits  to  time.  One  is  quite  likely  to  have  to  reckon 
with  his  tastes  and  his  conditions  and  consider  the  advanta- 
geous distribution  of  his  time.  There  are  other  studies  quite  as 
disciplinary  and  culturing  as  Latin  and  Greek.  One  is  not  to 
be  discredited  because  he  has  not  pursued  them.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion of  power  to  do  things  and  get  results,  and  one  who  has 
possessed  himself  of  that  power  is  cultured  by  it.  Xo  one  is 
animadverting  upon  Latin  and  Greek.  They  are  all  right  for 
their  purpose,  and  their  purpose  is  a  very  great  one.  But  it  is 
strange  that  the  disciples  of  liberal  learning  are  so  slow  to  see 
that  there  are  other  roads  to  great  results  than  those  of  Roman 
or  Grecian  construction. 

The  accomplishments  of  science  in  the  last  fifty  years  are 
not  to  be  compared  with  those  of  any  other  era.  They  exceed 
those  of  all  the  centuries  put  together.  They  are  not  the  work 
of  classical  scholars,  and  they  are  of  more  moment  than  all  the 
things  the  Greeks  and  Romans  ever  did.  The  heroic  and  unos- 
tentatious searchers  in  the  physical,  chemical,  biological,  and 
astronomical  sciences  have  unlocked  truths  which  widen  our 
knowledge  of  matter  and  of  life,  and  modify  our  conceptions  of 
without  shaking  our  belief  in  God. 

For  example,  the  newT  knowledge  of  disease  germs  does  much 
more  than  afford  us  some  help  in  curing  diseases;  it  teaches 
us  how  to  avoid  disease  and  puts  on  us  the  imperative  duty  to 
control  and  direct  individuals  in  the  interests  of  society.  It 
enters  the  field  of  sociology,  and  of  legislation,  and  of  public 
administration,  and  so  does  even  more  to  stimulate  the  think- 
ing and  the  doing  of  the'  whole  body  than  it  does  to  repel 
disease  through  the  revolutionary  changes  it  has  forced  in  med- 
ical practice.  An  illustration  drawn  at  random  from  any  one 
of  a  score  of  the  marvelous  successes  of  scientific  research  in 
unlocking  the  truth  wrould  be  no  less  suggestive. 


360 


UNIVERSITY    OP    THE    STATE    OF    NEW    YORK  [26    DEC. 


I  know  a  man,  yet  under  middle  age,  'who  in  one  of  the  scien- 
tific laboratories  of  the  University  of  Illinois,  has,  after  long 
years  of  patient  experimentation,  conclusively  proved  not  only 
that  you  can  change  the  character  of  corn  through  care  in  the 
selection  of  choice  ears  for  propagation,  but  also  that  through 
the  taking  of  the  kernels  from  particular  parts  of  the  ear  you 
can  change,  the  chemical  elements  and  breed  into  it  more  nitro- 
gen or  more  fat  as  you  will.  There  are  millions  of  money  and 
incalculable  other  consequences  in  that  demonstration. 

It  can  not  be  said  too  often  that  it  does  not  make  so  much 
difference  what  one  does  so  long  as  he  makes  some  contribution 
to  the  productivity  of  the  world.  And  one  is  liable  to  make 
quite  as  substantial  a  contribution,  and  gain  quite  as  profitable 
a  return,  in  cash  and  in  culture,  in  the  industrial  as  in  the 
classical  world,  and  in  the  field  of  applied  as  in  that  of  pure 
science. 

The  west  understands  even  better  than  the  east  does,  as  yet, 
how  much  easier  it  is  to  teach  things  and  inspire  boys  by  doing 
than  by  talking,  and  I  would  not  dare  to  imply  that  the  west 
is  at  all  backward  about  talking.  The  University  of  Illinois 
has  built  in  the  last  three  or  four  years  a  railway  test  car  for 
each  of  two  great  railway  systems  of  the  country.  We  operate 
these  cars  between  Cleveland  and  Omaha,  and  Chicago  and  New 
Orleans,  sending  our  teachers  and  our  senior  students  to  test 
locomotives,  measure  the  potentiality  of  coals,  ascertain  and 
record  defects  in  the  roadbeds,  and  to  do  everything  else  which 
will  help  the  companies  to  secure  the  greatest  economy  and 
efficiency  of  operation.  The  university  has  learned  that  the 
best  way  to  teach  railway  engineering  to  students  is  to  give 
them  an  all-round  training  and  then  set  them  to  engineering 
railroads.  And  the  railroads  have  found  that  the  men  who  can 
only  hold  a  job  are  not  educated,  and  that  educated  men  can 
do  more  for  them  than  uneducated  men,  when  it  comes  to  the 
necessity  of  the  greatest  speed  and  when  the  closest  saving  is 
imperative. 


1901]  ANNUAL  ADDRESS  361 

Last  spring  the  Central  railroad  of  New  Jersey,  hearing  of 
this  work  and  needing  help,  applied  for  the  use  of  one  of  these 
cars  during  the  summer  vacation,  and  we  loaned  them  a  car  as 
well  as  a  professor  and  some  students,  for  a  suitable  considera- 
tion. And  last  fall  the  New  York  Central  people,  driven  to  des- 
peration by  the  newspaper  criticism  of  their  Park  avenue  tun- 
nel, and  standing  in  danger  of  indictment,  wired  us  for  the  use 
of  one  of  our  cars  by  an  expert  in  trying  to  work  out  the  best 
electric  equipment  for  their  right  of  way  into  the  heart  of  the 
greatest  city  of  the  country.  For  a  compensation  still  more 
suitable  than  that  exacted  from  the  New  Jersey  Central  it  has 
gone,  with  our  professor  and  students,  and  as  it  vibrates 
between  the  Grand  Central  station  and  the  works  of  the  Gen- 
eral electric  company  at  Schenectady  in  the  execution  of  its 
mission  its  beautifully  painted  exterior  does  not  fail  to  indicate 
where  it  came  from  and  what  it  is  there  for.  There  is  quite  as 
much  training  and  discipline,  quite  as  much  culture  of  manli- 
ness, and  quite  as  much  advantage  to  the  world,  in  pushing  on 
the  scientific  construction  and  operation  of  railroads,  in  build- 
ing tunnels  under  great  rivers  and  the  greatest  city  in  the  coun- 
try, as  in  digging  out  Chinese  and  masticating  Sanskrit  roots. 

There  is  no  mistake  about  it,  the  schools  will  have  to  lend 
themselves  to  the  industries  of  the  nations  more  than  they  have 
yet  done.  This  will  have  to  be  done  even  though  it  involves  the 
throwing  away  of  some  old  ideals  and  standards,  for  the  con- 
ditions demand  it,  and  the  growth  of  the  people  will  be  pro- 
moted by  it,  and  the  spirit  of  democracy  will  be  still  further 
uplifted  by  it.  In  all  this  the  west  has  the  advantage  of  the 
east. 

Encourage  life  in  the  open  air,  not  for  physical  more  than 
for  mental  and  moral  health.  Let  the  schools  smell  of  the 
ground  as  often  as  possible;  it  will  help  them  to  keep  sane  and 
resist  the  doctrinaire.  Stand  by  field  sports,  even  those  which 
involve  hurts.  Our  young  people  do  not  have  to  struggle  any 
too  much  or  assume  any  too  many  risks.  There  is  more  train- 
ing for  the  real  demands  of  American  citizenship  through  the 


362  UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    STATE    OF    NEW    YORK  [26    DEC. 

rush  line  of  a  'varsity  football  team  on  one  cool  October  after- 
noon than  in  some  'varsity  classrooms  in  a  whole  semester. 

Illustrate  and  enforce  the  claims  of  public  service.  We  are 
beginning  to  learn,  what  we  have  never  seemed  to  realize  before, 
that  our  public  life  must  sustain  assaults,  and  that  govern- 
ment is  more  a  burden  than  a  pastime.  Tell  pupils  about  this. 
Talk  quite  as  much  of  the  responsibilities  and  duties  as  of  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  citizenship.  Let  them  know  something 
of  what  men  have  suffered  to  establish  order  and  create  oppor- 
tunities for  boys  and  girls. 

Last  spring  a  little  party  of  American  boys,  hardly  beyond 
the  college  age,  came  sailing  through  the  Golden  Gate  and 
landed  on  our  western  shore.  They  had  been,  at  our  instance 
and  as  our  representatives,  following  the  streams  and  thread- 
ing the  jungles  on  the  other  side  of  the  world,  to  establish  the 
order  which  the  flag  of  the  Union  signifies  and  so  confer  on 
other  millions  of  people  the  opportunities  of  freemen.  15  such 
boys  had  fallen  into  ambush  a  year  before.  Two  were  killed, 
two  were  mortally  wounded,  and  two  others  seriously  wounded. 
The  living  were  placed  for  execution.  McDonald,  mortally 
wounded,  begged  a  comrade  to  hold  him  up  in  the  death  line 
that  he  might  die  like  a  man.  Gilmour  demanded  that  the 
cowards  should  remove  the  bandages  from  the  eyes  of  the  men 
that  they  might  die  like  American  soldiers.  Poor  McDonald 
fainted  and  died  in  Walton's  arms.  At  the  supreme  moment 
the  insurgents  exchanged  death  for  torture  and  for  10  months 
it  was  inflicted.  Again  the  order  was  issued  for  execution,  and 
again  the  rifle  blast  was  stopped  by  fear  of  retribution.  Then 
a  miscreant  general  directed  that  they  be  murdered,  and  the 
officer  commissioned  to  perform  the  crime  quailed  and  saved 
the  hero  band.  Then  other  gallant  boys,  disciplined  to  the  dar- 
ings and  the  hardships  of  United  States  regulars,  following  for 
weary  months  with  little  sleep,  and  little  food,  and  little  encour- 
agement from  the  far  away  homes  across  the  seas,  overtook 
their  starving  and  staggering  comrades,  put  the  strong  arm  of 


1901]  ANNUAL    ADDRESS  363 

the  Republic  about  them  and  brought  them  back  to  an  appre- 
ciative and  a  grateful  land. 

Let  these  things  reach  the  pupils,  and  tell  them  that  it  is  the 
business  of  men  to  support  government  and  not  of  government 
to  support  men,  so  that  they  may  catch  an  early  glimpse  of  the 
great  fact  that  organized  government  is  a  costly  heritage  and 
that  its  maintenance  and  its  transmission  are  at  once  a  weighty 
burden  and  an  heroic  duty. 

Regard  the  higher  learning.  Nothing  else  can  break  out  the 
roads.  Nothing  else  can  lift  the  schools  to  higher  planes  and 
yet  better  work.  But  do  not  let  the  conceptions  of  other  gener- 
ations determine  conclusively  in  what  fields  the  higher  learn- 
ing shall  advance.  Encourage  research,  whether  capable  of  ap- 
plication or  not,  in  all  fields,  but  insist  that  such  work  as  is  set 
in  motion  in  the  elementary  and  secondary  schools  shall  have 
some  relation  to  American  life. 

Eemember  that  there  is  a  democracy  of  learning.  In  that 
democracy  selfishness  is  treason,  and  meanness  defeats  itself. 
The  success  of  one  man  helps  every  other  man.  The  growth  of 
one  institution  helps  every  other  institution  which  is  moved 
by  the  educational  spirit  or  entitled  to  much  of  a  place  in  the 
educational  world.  There  is  not  only  room  for  all  institutions 
and  all  undertakings  in  the  universe  of  learning,  but  the  suc- 
cess of  each  depends,  not  on  pertness  and  overreaching,  but  on 
the  magnanimity  it  extends  to  all  w7ho  are  struggling,  and  the 
relations  it  sustains  to  all  organized  effort  to  promote  the  com- 
mon interests  of  men  and  women. 

The  Divine  Power  creates  and  directs  civilizations.  Schools 
are  the  instruments  of  civilizations.  The  activity  and  the 
accomplishments  of  pupils  spring  from  inspiration.  If  the 
teacher  would  be  of  real  service  to  pupils  he  must  inspire  them. 
If  he  would  enrich  their  lives  he  must  have  a  life  of  his  own 
with  riches  in  it.  He  must  know  about  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  and  industrial  evolution  of  his  country  and  his  age; 
he  must  think  logically;  he  must  stand  for  what  he  thinks  and 
feels,  steadily  and  heroically. 


364  UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    STATE    OP    NEW    YORK  [27    DEC.      |  u^= 

If  he  can  draw  out  of  the  great  reservoir  of  world  experience, 
if  he  can  believe  that  there  is  a  divine  law  operating  in  the 
world  advance,  if  he  can  take  hold  of  youth  and  fire  souls  with 
desires  he  will  generate  natural,  cheerful,  buoyant,  courageous 
life  The  spelling  will  in  time  be  correct  enough,  the  problems 
demonstrated  with  exactness  enough,  knowledge  of  things  will 
accumulate,  respect  for  hand  and  mind  labor  will  enlarge, 
powers  will  strengthen,  courage  will  gather,  and  a  greater  num- 
ber of  healthful  and  ambitious  spirits  will  push  on  the  higher 
interests  and  enrich  the  nobler  life  of  the  world. 


m  IUKIMN  0?  THE 

SEP     IW 

UNIVERSE  OF  IUIN01S. 


